Seiko Epson Creates Hi-Res E-Ink Display
November 15th, 2007
This new electronic paper display from Seiko Epson crams an astounding 1600 x 1200 resolution into a 6.7-inch diagonal screen. That’s nearly 2-million pixels in a device that’s about the size of a letter-sized sheet of paper folded in half.
According to my rough math, the display cranks out over 230 pixels-per-inch, about 3 times that of the typical LCD computer screen. Perfect for use in electronic book readers, the flat panel measures in at just 3mm thick, and can display 1400 pages on a single button-cell battery.
While Seiko Epson hasn’t revealed any products which use the new display, it’s only a matter of time before we see these in real world devices.
[via MobileRead]
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Categories: Digital Imaging Future Tech
Tags: display e ink electronic paper epson flat high resolution reader screen seiko
I’ve seen one of these in action. If it’s what I saw, the e-ink is quite different from the normal concept of a pixel, to. What I saw was really neat because instead of constantly using electricity to keep the display up, it used electricity to draw the display and because of how the display worked chemically, the display remained up until it was changed again.
I wonder if Epson’s device works like that, or if it actually works more like a traditional display. I also wonder if it’s capable of color display.
Unfortunately, if this turns out to be anything like any of the two Epson printers I’ve had, then it’ll die in a spectacular show of smoke and popping noises… which would be a little more hazardous for an e-ink display…
This probably uses the same screen as the new Sony Readers; ie, an 8-level grayscale eInk screen. The 6.7 inch screen is nice, although the fact that they have it using button cell batteries instead of a rechargeable is a big turn-off for me.
Quite interesting development. I read somewhere an article about the death of ebook readers – and sure I had enough doubts about that. This device proves me right. Quite amazing. It can probably display anything from type fonts to images.
Regarding Nathan’s comment above: this is simply an early prototype, so the button battery will probably be replaced with a rechargeable in the production model. Also, the screen isn’t the same as the one in the Sony Reader. It’s much higher resolution.
Looks quite interesting. Should certainly help increase the battery life of notebooks. Imm guessing that at some point a colour display will be possible